Providing managed services in a cloud environment

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure relates to managing services by a managed service provider (MSP) in a cloud based infrastructure. A control plane of the MSP is established in a first tenancy, and a first access plane of the MSP is established in a second tenancy of a cloud environment. The control plane is configured to manage a plurality of services offered by the MSP to a first host machine included in the second tenancy. A first request is transmitted from the control plane to the first access plane, where the first request is forwarded by the first access plane to the first host machine, and corresponds to a service utilized by the first host machine and managed by the control plane of the MSP. In response to the first request being validated, a first state of the first host machine is modified in the second tenancy based on the first request.

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a non-provisional of and claims the benefit of thefiling date of U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/166,502, filed onMar. 26, 2021, the contents of which are incorporated herein byreference in its entirety for all purposes.

FIELD

The present disclosure relates to a managed service provider thatprovides managed services in a cloud environment across multiplecustomer tenancies.

BACKGROUND

Cloud-based platforms have become increasingly common for end-to-enddata management in database systems. Such cloud-based platforms mayoffer entire suites of cloud solutions built around a customer's data. Amanaged service provider (MSP) is an entity (e.g., a third partycompany) that remotely manages a customer's information technologyinfrastructure and end-user systems. Different organizations hire MSPsto perform a defined set of day-to-day management services.

Providing managed services is typically performed in one of two ways:(i) a centralized managed services approach, and (ii) a distributedmanaged services approach. In the centralized approach, the MSP'sresources (e.g., management plane) reside in an on-premise locatione.g., a datacenter. The MSP connects customer tenancies in a cloudenvironment to the datacenter via a virtual private network. Typically,the MSP requires customers to use a pre-defined set of IP addresses toconnect the customer's tenancies in the cloud to the MSP's managementplane in the datacenter. As such, the MSP provides, and manages servicesto the customers, as a remote extension of the MSP's datacenter. Such anapproach presents security challenges in managing customer's data andthus tends to be infeasible.

In contrast, in the distributed approach, the MSP deploys a managementtool e.g., management plane, in each of the customer's tenancies in thecloud. In doing so, the distributed management planes will have adifferent system/set of accounts, and management tools per customer.Such an approach of providing managed services presents scalabilityissues for the MSP. Embodiments discussed herein address these and otherissues individually as well as collectively.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure relates generally to a framework for providingmanaged services in a cloud environment across multiple customertenancies. Various embodiments are described herein, including methods,systems, non-transitory computer-readable storage media storingprograms, code, or instructions executable by one or more processors,and the like. These illustrative embodiments are mentioned not to limitor define the disclosure, but to provide examples to aid understandingthereof. Additional embodiments are discussed in the detaileddescription section, and further description is provided therein.

An aspect of the present disclosure provides for a method comprisingestablishing a control plane of a managed service provider (MSP) in afirst tenancy of a cloud environment, and a first access plane of theMSP in a second tenancy of the cloud environment, wherein the controlplane is configured to manage a plurality of services offered by the MSPto a first host machine included in the second tenancy of the cloudenvironment; transmitting a first request from the control plane of theMSP in the first tenancy to the first access plane of the MSP in thesecond tenancy, wherein the first request is forwarded by the firstaccess plane of the MSP to the first host machine, and corresponds to aservice utilized by the first host machine and managed by the controlplane of the MSP; and responsive to the first request being validated,modifying a first state of the first host machine in the second tenancybased on the first request.

Another aspect of the present disclosure provides for a computing devicecomprising a processor; and a memory including instructions that, whenexecuted with the processor, cause the computing device to, at least:establish a control plane of a managed service provider (MSP) in a firsttenancy of a cloud environment, and a first access plane of the MSP in asecond tenancy of the cloud environment, wherein the control plane isconfigured to manage a plurality of services offered by the MSP to afirst host machine included in the second tenancy of the cloudenvironment; transmit a first request from the control plane of the MSPin the first tenancy to the first access plane of the MSP in the secondtenancy, wherein the first request is forwarded by the first accessplane of the MSP to the first host machine, and corresponds to a serviceutilized by the first host machine and managed by the control plane ofthe MSP; and responsive to the first request being validated, modify afirst state of the first host machine in the second tenancy based on thefirst request.

Another aspect of the present disclosure provides a computer readablemedium storing specific computer-executable instructions that, whenexecuted by a processor, cause a computer system to at least: establisha control plane of a managed service provider (MSP) in a first tenancyof a cloud environment, and a first access plane of the MSP in a secondtenancy of the cloud environment, wherein the control plane isconfigured to manage a plurality of services offered by the MSP to afirst host machine included in the second tenancy of the cloudenvironment; transmit a first request from the control plane of the MSPin the first tenancy to the first access plane of the MSP in the secondtenancy, wherein the first request is forwarded by the first accessplane of the MSP to the first host machine, and corresponds to a serviceutilized by the first host machine and managed by the control plane ofthe MSP; and responsive to the first request being validated, modify afirst state of the first host machine in the second tenancy based on thefirst request.

The foregoing, together with other features and embodiments will becomemore apparent upon referring to the following specification, claims, andaccompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary architecture of providing managed servicesin a region of a cloud environment in accordance with variousembodiments.

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary architecture of providing managed servicesin a cloud environment in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 3 depicts another exemplary architecture illustrating details ofproviding managed services in a cloud environment in accordance withvarious embodiments.

FIG. 4A illustrates a simplified flowchart depicting steps performed bya managed service provider, according to certain embodiments.

FIG. 4B illustrates a flowchart depicting steps performed in aconfiguration management service provided by a managed service provider,according to certain embodiments.

FIG. 5A illustrates a simplified flowchart depicting steps performed ina service request initiated by a host, according to certain embodiments.

FIG. 5B illustrates a flowchart depicting steps performed in executing aservice request initiated by a host machine, according to certainembodiments.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating one pattern for implementing acloud infrastructure as a service system, according to at least oneembodiment.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram illustrating another pattern for implementinga cloud infrastructure as a service system, according to at least oneembodiment.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram illustrating another pattern for implementinga cloud infrastructure as a service system, according to at least oneembodiment.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram illustrating another pattern for implementinga cloud infrastructure as a service system, according to at least oneembodiment.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating an example computer system,according to at least one embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following description, for the purposes of explanation, specificdetails are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding ofcertain embodiments. However, it will be apparent that variousembodiments may be practiced without these specific details. The figuresand description are not intended to be restrictive. The word “exemplary”is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, orillustration.” Any embodiment or design described herein as “exemplary”is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous overother embodiments or designs.

The present disclosure describes new and improved techniques formanaging a suite of services in a cloud environment (also referred toherein as a cloud infrastructure) by a managed service provider (MSP).Novel techniques are described for configuring customer resources in thecloud infrastructure in a seamless manner and managing services utilizedby customers without requiring the customers to incur a severe overhaulof the customer's systems i.e., customers are not enforced to performconfiguration changes to their systems in order to avail the managementof services. Additionally, the techniques of managing services (by theMSP) described herein provide for a low cost, low latency, and reducedcomplexity mechanism of managing the suite of services utilized bydifferent customers.

A cloud service provider provides a variety of services to users orcustomers on demand using different systems and infrastructure (i.e.,the cloud infrastructure). In certain embodiments, a cloud serviceprovider may provide services under an Infrastructure-as-a-Servicemodel, wherein the cloud service provider provides infrastructure thatcan be used by customers to build their own networks and deploy customerresources. The infrastructure provided by the cloud service provider mayinclude interconnected high-performance computer resources includingvarious host machines (also referred to as hosts), memory resources, andnetwork resources that form a physical network, which is referred to asa substrate network or an underlay network. The infrastructure providedby the cloud service provider may be spread across one or more datacenters that may be geographically spread across one or more regions.

The physical network of the cloud service provider, which includes thevarious host machines, memory resources, and network resources, providesthe underlying basis for creating one or more virtual or overlaynetworks on top of the physical network. These virtual or overlaynetworks (also referred to as software-based or software-definednetworks) are implemented using software virtualization technologies tocreate layers of network abstraction that can be run on top of thephysical network. Overlay networks can take on many forms. Overlaynetworks typically use Layer-3 IP addressing with endpoints designatedby their virtual IP addresses. This method of overlay networking isoften referred to as virtual Layer 3 networking.

When a customer subscribes to or registers for an IaaS service providedby a cloud service provider, a tenancy is created for that customer. Thetenancy is a secure and isolated partition within the cloud serviceprovider's infrastructure where the customer can create, organize, andadminister their cloud resources. For example, a customer can useresources provided by the cloud service provider to build one ormultiple customizable and private virtual network(s) referred to asvirtual cloud networks (VCNs) within the customer's tenancy. One or morecustomer resources, such as compute instances (e.g., virtual machines,bare metal instances, etc.) can be deployed on these customer VCNs.

An MSP delivers a range of services such as network testing andmonitoring, managing installations and upgrades, network provisioning,providing web-hosting, providing data storage, etc., to differentcustomers. Typically, such services are provided by connecting differentcustomer tenancies in the cloud environment(s) to an on-premisedatacenter that is managed by the MSP. Communication between thecustomer tenancies in the cloud and the on-premise datacenter may befacilitated via different communication protocols such as IPsec-VPN orFastConnect. As such, the MSP manages all the customer tenancies, in acentralized manner, as a remote extension of the MSP's on-premisedatacenter. In such a setting, the MSP requires the customers to use apredefined set of IP addresses to connect to the MSP that utilizes acentralized management tool to provide services to different customers.Such an approach leads to security challenges in managing differentcustomer's sensitive data.

An alternative solution for providing managed services is to deploy amanagement model in each of the customer tenancies in the cloudinfrastructure. In this approach, the MSP provides a differentmanagement tool per customer to manage the various services. Such adistributed approach is not a cost effective solution for the MSP andpresents scalability issues. Another approach for providing managedservices is via a network address translation (NAT) technique. In thisapproach, the MSP is required to perform a NAT operation on each managedhost's address, which leads to the host being recognized (by the MSP) bya different IP address. Such an approach leads to complications insupporting the customer tenancy environment(s) through both manual andautomated means, presents economies of scale issues, and iscomputationally exhaustive.

As described herein, a new architecture is provided for managingservices (in the cloud) utilized by the customers. By certainembodiments, the MSP builds or establishes (i.e., deploys) a controlplane in the cloud (rather than in an on-premise datacenter), anddeploys an access plane in each of the customer tenancies in the cloudi.e., the access plane co-resides with a customer's data plane in thecustomer's tenancy. It is appreciated that the control plane isestablished in a separate tenancy (e.g., a managed service providertenancy) as compared to the access plane(s). The customer systems i.e.,resources deployed in the customer's tenancy communicates with thecontrol plane via the access plane deployed in the customer's tenancy.Such an architecture provisions customers to have a fully managedservice which includes allowing access for product experts to thecustomer's managed environment(s), and systems access to/from apluggable architecture of management and value-added services withinwhich all services come from the control plane of the MSP. Moreover, themechanism provides managed services to customer tenancies in the cloudenvironment at a scale that is provided in a managed datacenter.

Turning to FIG. 1 , there is depicted an exemplary architecture ofproviding managed services in a region of a cloud environment inaccordance with various embodiments. As shown in FIG. 1 , a region ofthe cloud environment 100 (e.g., region I) includes a managed serviceprovider's (MSPs) tenancy 107, and a plurality of customer tenanciese.g., customer A tenancy 103, customer K tenancy 105, etc. The MSPtenancy 107 includes a control plane 119 of the MSP that provides (andmanages) a suite of services 119A to host machines included in theplurality of customer tenancies. In other words, a single control plane(e.g., control plane 119) of the MSP provides services to differentcustomer tenancies included in the region of the cloud environment.

By some embodiments, the MSP deploys an access plane in each of thecustomer tenancies included in the region of the cloud environment 100.For instance, an access plane of the MSP 113 is deployed in customer Atenancy 103, and an access plane 117 is deployed in customer K tenancy105. Each access plane of the MSP co-resides with a customer's dataplane within the customer's tenancy. For example, the access plane 113co-resides with a data plane 111 within customer A tenancy 103, andaccess plane 117 co-resides with data plane 115 within customer Ktenancy 105. Each data plane includes a plurality of host machines thatavail services offered (and managed) by the MSP. For instance, dataplane 111 includes a plurality of hosts (and services availed by thehosts) 111A, and data plane 115 includes a plurality of hosts (andservices availed by the hosts) 115A.

By some embodiments, the MSP deploys a management gateway in each accessplane. For instance, access plane 113 includes a management gateway113A, and access plane 117 includes a management gateway 117A. The MSPconfigures each management gateway by allocating the gateway a uniqueglobal IP address. The access plane deployed in each customer tenancy(e.g., access planes 113 and 117) perform proxy services for connectionsoriginating from customer's data plane (and intended for the MSP'scontrol plane 119), and connections originating from the control plane119 of the MSP (and intended for a host associated with the data plane).In this manner, the access planes that reside in the respective customertenancies provide the control plane 119, a gateway to communicate withhost machine(s) of the customer included in the customer's tenancies.Details regarding the proxy services provided by the access planes aswell as the suite of services provided by the control plane aredescribed later with reference to FIG. 3 .

According to some embodiments, each of the access planes (i.e., 113 and117) may include a list of management services (e.g., a registry)provided by the MSP for the respective customer tenancies. The servicesoffered in each registry may correspond to managed services such as acustomer dedicated proxy, a file service gateway, etc. Further, in eachcustomer tenancy, the data plane of the customer tenancy iscommunicatively coupled with corresponding access plane via localpeering techniques.

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary cloud infrastructure environment 200 inwhich an MSP provides managed services in accordance with someembodiments. The cloud infrastructure environment 200 includes a firstregion (i.e., a primary region) 202 of the cloud environment, and asecond region (i.e., a secondary region) 204 of the cloud environment.Each region of the cloud infrastructure environment 200 includes acustomer tenancy and a MSP tenancy. For example, as depicted in FIG. 2 ,the first region 202 of the cloud environment includes a first customertenancy 206A and a first MSP tenancy 206B, whereas the second region 204of the cloud environment includes a second customer tenancy 208A and asecond MSP tenancy 208B.

By some embodiments, for each region of the cloud environment, the MSPdeploys a control plane in an MSP tenancy of the region of the cloudenvironment, and deploys an access plane within a customer tenancy ofthe region of the cloud environment. For instance, with respect to thefirst region 202 of the cloud environment, the MSP deploys a controlplane 214 in the MSP tenancy 206B, and an access plane 212 within thecustomer tenancy 206A of the region of the cloud environment. In asimilar manner, with respect to the second region 204 of the cloudenvironment, the MSP deploys a control plane 224 in the MSP tenancy208B, and an access plane 222 within the customer tenancy 208A of theregion of the cloud environment.

Further, the MSP deploys a management gateway in each access plane. Forinstance, access plane 212 (deployed in a customer tenancy included inthe first region of the cloud environment) includes a management gateway213, and access plane 222 (deployed in a customer tenancy included inthe second region of the cloud environment) includes a managementgateway 223. The MSP configures each management gateway (i.e., gateways213 and 223) by allocating the gateway a unique global IP address. It isappreciated that each region of the cloud environment includes adedicated MSP control plane (i.e., MSP control plane 214 for primaryregion 202, and MSP control plane 224 for secondary region 204) thatprovides (and manages) a suite of services to host machines included incustomer tenancies of the respective regions of the cloud environment.

Each access plane of the MSP (i.e., access planes 212 and 222)co-resides with a customer's data plane within the customer's tenancy.For example, the access plane 212 co-resides with data plane 210 withincustomer tenancy 206A, and access plane 222 co-resides with data plane220 within customer tenancy 208A. Each data plane includes a pluralityof host machines that avail services offered (and managed) by the MSP'scontrol plane included within the region of the cloud environment. Forexample, data plane 210 includes a plurality of hosts 211 that availservices provided by the MSP's control plane 214 (i.e., control planeservices 215), and data plane 220 includes a plurality of hosts 221 thatavail services provided by the MSP's control plane 224 (i.e., controlplane services 225). Within each region, the access plane deployed inthe customer tenancy (e.g., access planes 212 deployed in customertenancy 206A, and access plane 222 deployed in customer tenancy 208A),perform proxy services (via the respective management gateways includedin the access planes) for connections originating from customer's dataplane and intended for the MSP's control plane, and vice versa.

It is noted that users associated with each of the data planes 210 and220 may access the suite of services e.g., via a VCN connection fromdifferent geographical customer locations (e.g., on-premise locations)represented as 230. Furthermore, each of the primary region data plane210 and the secondary region data plane 220 are communicatively coupledwith their respective access planes i.e., access planes 212 and 222 vialocal peering techniques. Additionally, the primary region data plane210 may be communicatively coupled to the secondary region data plane220 via remote peering techniques. It is also appreciated that for sakeof illustration, each of the primary region and the secondary region ofthe cloud infrastructure environment 200 of FIG. 2 is depicted toinclude a single customer tenancy. However, this is in no way limitingthe scope of the present disclosure. Rather, each region of the cloudinfrastructure may include multiple customer tenancies, where servicesavailed by each customer tenancy of a region is controlled and managedby the MSP's control plane corresponding to the region.

FIG. 3 depicts an exemplary architecture illustrating details ofproviding managed services in a cloud environment in accordance withvarious embodiments. As shown in FIG. 3 , a cloud environment of aregion 300 includes a customer tenancy 310 and a MSP tenancy 320. TheMSP tenancy 320 includes a control plane 322 of the MSP. The controlplane 322 of the MSP hosts a suite of services e.g., pluggable service A322A, pluggable service B 322B, pluggable service C 322D, pluggableservice E 322E, and pluggable service F 322F. The services maycorrespond to services such as authentication/authorization services,consolidated data-logging services, testing and monitoring services,web-hosting services, network provisioning services and the like.

Additionally, the control plane 322 hosts a configuration managementservice 322C that is utilized in configuring customer system(s). Theconfiguration management service 322C is utilized to configure hostmachines (e.g., set a state of one or more host machines) that avail ofat least one service from the suite of services offered and managed bythe MSP. By some embodiments, configuring a host machine may includemodifying/updating an existing state of the host machine. A state of thehost machine is defined by one or more operational parameters of thehost machine. As such, configuring the host machine may includesetting/updating values of the one or more operational parameters of thehost machine. Details pertaining to the configuration management serviceprovided by the MSP is described later with reference to FIG. 4B.

The customer tenancy 310 included in the cloud environment 300 comprisesa data plane 312 and an access plane 314 i.e., the access plane 314 (ofthe MSP) co-resides with the customer's data plane 312 within thecustomer tenancy 310. The data plane 312 includes a plurality of managedenvironments 312A-312K (i.e., one or more host machines of the customerthat avail services offered (and managed) by the MSP), that areassociated with the data plane 312 of the customer.

The access plane 314 of the MSP that is deployed in the customer'tenancy 310 in the cloud includes a management gateway 315. By someembodiments, the management gateway 315 is allocated a unique global IPaddress and performs proxy services for connections originating fromcustomer's data plane 312 (and intended for the MSP's control plane 322)and connections originating from the control plane 322 of the MSP (andintended for a host associated with the data plane 312). In this manner,the access plane 314 (residing in the customer's tenancy) provides thecontrol plane 322 of MSP (residing in the MSP tenancy 320), a gateway tocommunicate with host machine(s) of the customer included in thecustomer's tenancy 310.

By some embodiments, the access plane 314 can implement authorizationrules which ensure that only legitimate connections are establishedbetween the control plane of the MSP 322 and host machines included inthe data plane 312 of the customer's tenancy 310. For example, theaccess plane 314 may allow connections from the control plane 322 thathave a valid identifier included in a message originating from thecontrol plane 322 e.g., an identifier associated with the control planeof the MSP 322. Further, as the access plane 314 of the MSP forms aninterface between the data plane 312 of the customer and the controlplane 322 of the MSP, each host associated with the data plane 312allows connections that are transmitted via the access plane 314 i.e.,via the management gateway 315 included in the access plane 314. It isappreciated that the host can verify whether a connection is alegitimate connection based on the unique global IP address of themanagement gateway 315 included in messages transmitted to the host.

According to some embodiments, the configuration management service 322Cincludes a one-time configuration setup e.g., setup of the customer'ssystem (i.e., host machines of the customer deployed in the data plane312 included in the customer tenancy 310). The configuration of the hostmachines can be performed by the MSP via the access plane 314. In theconfiguration of a host machine (e.g., performed by the configurationmanagement unit 322C), the MSP can assign each host machine a uniquehost tag i.e., a host machine identifier, as well as a regional tagi.e., an identifier associated with a region of the cloud environment inwhich the customer tenancy is included. In this manner, each hostmachine in cloud environment may be identified via a pair of identifiersincluding the unique host tag and the regional tag. Upon configuring thehost machines, the host machines can communicate with the control plane322 (included in the MSP tenancy 320) via the access plane 314 of theMSP deployed in the customer's tenancy 310. In this manner, a customeris provisioned with a suite of fully managed services that includeallowing access to product experts to managed environments in the dataplane 312 and system access to value-added services deployed in thecontrol plane 322 of the MSP.

It is appreciated that control plane of the MSP e.g., control plane 322is built/deployed using automated means, and managed using bothautomated and manual means. The control plane 322 may interact withmultiple access planes (belonging to different customer tenancies in theregion of the cloud environment), which are in turn built usingautomated or manual means. The access plane provides access for bothmanaged automated and manual management of the related customerenvironment(s) by control plane services and managed cloud servicesauthorized personnel.

FIG. 4A illustrates a simplified flowchart depicting steps performed bya managed service provider, according to certain embodiments. Theprocessing depicted in FIG. 4A may be implemented in software (e.g.,code, instructions, program) executed by one or more processing units(e.g., processors, cores) of the respective systems, hardware, orcombinations thereof. The software may be stored on a non-transitorystorage medium (e.g., on a memory device). The method presented in FIG.4A and described below is intended to be illustrative and non-limiting.Although FIG. 4A depicts the various processing steps occurring in aparticular sequence or order, this is not intended to be limiting. Incertain alternative embodiments, the steps may be performed in somedifferent order or some steps may also be performed in parallel.

The process commences in step 401, where an MSP establishes (i.e.,deploys) a control plane in a tenancy (i.e., MSP tenancy) in a cloudenvironment. In step 403, the MSP establishes an access plane in acustomer tenancy included in the cloud environment. Specifically, theaccess plane co-resides with a data plane in the customer tenancy of thecloud environment.

In step 405, the MSP configures a management gateway deployed within theaccess plane. By some embodiments, the MSP configures the managementgateway by assigning the management gateway a global unique IP address.The access plane (along with the management gateway) performs proxyservices for connections originating from a customer's data plane andintended for the MSP's control plane, as well as for connectionsoriginating from the control plane of the MSP and intended for a hostassociated with the data plane.

The process then moves to step 407, where a request is transmitted fromthe control plane of the MSP to a host machine included in the customertenancy. The request may correspond to a request to manage a serviceprovided by the MSP to the host machine. It is appreciated that therequest is forwarded from the control plane to the access plane of theMSP, wherein the management gateway included in the access planeforwards the request to the host machine.

In step 409, a query is executed to determine whether the request is avalid request. If the response to the query is affirmative (i.e., therequest is a valid request) then the process moves to step 411. However,if the response to the query is negative, then the process moves to step413. By some embodiments, the verification as to whether the request isvalid request is performed in two stages: (i) the access planedetermines whether or not the initiated connection (from the controlplane of the MSP) is to be authorized. For instance, the managementgateway executes a query to determine whether the request is to beauthorized based on an identifier (e.g., an identifier associated withthe control plane of the MSP) included in the request transmitted fromthe control plane to the access plane. If the management planedetermines that a valid identifier is included in the request, then themanagement gateway authorizes the request and forwards the request tothe host machine, and (ii) the host machine upon receiving the requestdetermines whether the request includes an address corresponding to theglobal unique IP address of the management gateway included in theaccess plane.

Upon the request being successfully validated, in step 411, the MSPexecutes the service provided to the host machine and modifies a stateof the host machine to reflect that the host machine has availed theservice. For instance, by some embodiments, the MSP modifies the stateof the host machine by setting one or more operational parameters of thehost machine. For example, the MSP may set an operational parameter ofthe host machine to a value of ‘1’ to indicate that the requestedservice (e.g., email delivery, file transfer, logging service, etc.,) issuccessfully provided to the host machine. If the response to the queryin step 409 is negative (i.e., request is not a valid request), then theprocess moves to step 413, where a failure of service message istransmitted from the host machine in the customer tenancy to the controlplane in the MSP tenancy.

FIG. 4B illustrates a flowchart depicting steps performed in aconfiguration management service provided by a managed service provider,according to certain embodiments. The processing depicted in FIG. 4B maybe implemented in software (e.g., code, instructions, program) executedby one or more processing units (e.g., processors, cores) of therespective systems, hardware, or combinations thereof. The software maybe stored on a non-transitory storage medium (e.g., on a memory device).The method presented in FIG. 4B and described below is intended to beillustrative and non-limiting. Although FIG. 4B depicts the variousprocessing steps occurring in a particular sequence or order, this isnot intended to be limiting. In certain alternative embodiments, thesteps may be performed in some different order or some steps may also beperformed in parallel. In certain embodiments, such as in the embodimentdepicted in FIG. 3 , the flowchart depicted in FIG. 4B may be performedby the configuration management service 322C deployed in the controlplane 322.

In step 451, the MSP initiates, via the configuration management servicedeployed in a control plane of the MSP, a configuration event for ahost. In step 453, the MSP performs a lookup operation of the host.Specifically, the host may be a member of a group i.e., customer tenancythat is identified by an identifier e.g., customer code and/or a regiontag associated with the customer tenancy.

In step 455 a query is performed to determine whether an access plane isprovided for the host. Specifically, the MSP determines whether anaccess plane is deployed i.e., co-resided with a data plane of acustomer tenancy of the host. If the response to the query isaffirmative, the process moves to step 457. If the response to the queryin step 455 is negative, the process moves to step 461. In step 461, theMSP logs a failure of the configuration event (i.e., due to the accessplane being undeployed in the customer tenancy) and terminates theconfiguration management process. Upon successfully determining thedeployment of the access plane in step 455, the MSP obtains a global IPaddress assigned to the management gateway of the access plane andinitiates a connection from the control plane of the MSP to the accessplane that is deployed in the customer's tenancy in step 455.

In step 459, the access plane determines whether or not the initiatedconnection is to be authorized. For instance, a management gateway(deployed in the access plane) executes a query to determine whether theinitiated connection is to be authorized. By some embodiments, themanagement gateway authorizes the connection based on an identifier(e.g., an identifier associated with the control plane of the MSP)included in a message transmitted from the control plane to the accessplane. If the response to the query of step 459 is affirmative (i.e.,the connection is authorized), the process moves to step 465, whereas ifthe response to the query is negative (i.e., the connection isunauthorized), the process moves to step 463. By some embodiments, instep 463, the management gateway included in the access plane transmitsa message to the control plane of the MSP indicating an unauthorizedaccess attempt (i.e., connection is not established), whereafter theprocess moves to step 461, wherein the MSP logs a failure of theconfiguration event.

In response to the query of step 459 being successfully authorized, instep 465, an access end-point processes the connection and forwards theconnection to the host. Thereafter, the process moves to step 467,wherein a host in the customer's tenancy executes a query to determinewhether a connection originating from the access end-point is allowedaccess. For example, the host may determine to allow only thoseconnections from the access plane based on verifying whether an addressincluded in the connection request corresponds to the global unique IPaddress of the management gateway included in the access plane. If theresponse to the query of step 467 is affirmative, then the process movesto step 469, else the process moves to step 463.

In response to the host denying the connection, the host (at step 463)generates a message indicating an unsuccessful connection establishment.The message is transmitted to the access plane, wherein the managementgateway forwards the message to the control plane of the MSP.Thereafter, the process moves to step 461, wherein the MSP logs afailure of the configuration event. If the host allows the connection,then the host at step 469 executes the configuration event.Specifically, the host system is configured based on informationincluded in the configuration request message initiated by the controlplane of the MSP. For instance, the MSP may configure the host machineby setting one or more operational parameters of the host machine.

Further, in step 471, the host executes a query to determine whether theconfiguration event was successfully executed. If the response to thequery of step 471 is affirmative, the process moves to step 473, else ifthe response to the query is negative, the process moves to step 475. Atstep 473, the host transmits a message indicating successful executionof the configuration event to the access plane, which in turn forwardsthe message (via the management gateway) to the control plane of theMSP. Thereafter, the process moves to step 479 wherein the MSP logs theconfiguration event as being executed successfully. If the response tothe query of 471 is negative, then the host machine transmits a message(at step 475) indicating unsuccessful execution of the configurationevent to the access plane, which in turn forwards the message (via themanagement gateway) to the control plane of the MSP. Thereafter, theprocess moves to step 461, wherein the MSP logs the configuration eventas being executed unsuccessfully.

FIG. 5A depicts illustrates a simplified flowchart depicting stepsperformed in a service request initiated by a host, according to certainembodiments. The processing depicted in FIG. 5A may be implemented insoftware (e.g., code, instructions, program) executed by one or moreprocessing units (e.g., processors, cores) of the respective systems,hardware, or combinations thereof. The software may be stored on anon-transitory storage medium (e.g., on a memory device). The methodpresented in FIG. 5A and described below is intended to be illustrativeand non-limiting. Although FIG. 5A depicts the various processing stepsoccurring in a particular sequence or order, this is not intended to belimiting. In certain alternative embodiments, the steps may be performedin some different order or some steps may also be performed in parallel.

The process commences in step 501, where a request for a service istransmitted from a host machine included in a customer tenancy of thecloud environment to a control plane of the MSP (included in the MSPtenancy of the cloud environment). It is appreciated that the request istransmitted from the customer tenancy to the control plane of the MSPvia the management gateway included in the access plane. In step 503,the control plane upon receiving the request executes a process toauthenticate the request. By some embodiments, the control planeauthenticates the request by determining whether the request includes avalid host tag and/or a region tag. It is appreciated that each hostmachine in cloud environment is assigned a region and/or host tag by theMSP during configuration or setup process.

In step 505, a query is executed to determine whether the request isauthenticated. If the response to the query is affirmative, then theprocess moves to step 509, else if the response to the query isnegative, then the process moves to step 507. In step 507 i.e., upondetermining that the request is not a valid request, the MSP transmits amessage (to the host machine) indicating an unsuccessful servicecompletion. In step 509 i.e., upon determining that the request is avalid request, the control plane of the MSP accepts, and executes, theservice request. Thereafter, in step 511, the control plane transmits amessage to the host machine indicating a successful completion of theservice request.

FIG. 5B illustrates a flowchart 550 depicting steps performed inexecuting a service request initiated by a host machine, according tocertain embodiments. The processing depicted in FIG. 5B may beimplemented in software (e.g., code, instructions, program) executed byone or more processing units (e.g., processors, cores) of the respectivesystems, hardware, or combinations thereof. The software may be storedon a non-transitory storage medium (e.g., on a memory device). Themethod presented in FIG. 5B and described below is intended to beillustrative and non-limiting. Although FIG. 5B depicts the variousprocessing steps occurring in a particular sequence or order, this isnot intended to be limiting. In certain alternative embodiments, thesteps may be performed in some different order or some steps may also beperformed in parallel.

The process commences in step 512, where a service request is initiatedby a host machine (also referred to herein as a host) that belongs to acustomer tenancy. The service request may correspond to a request fortransmission of an email. At step 514, a query is executed to determinewhether a control plane end-point for the service (e.g., email) isdefined. Specifically, a query is made to check whether the controlplane of the MSP provides the service i.e., service is managed by theMSP. If the response to the query in step 514 is affirmative, theprocess moves to 518. If the response to the query is negative, theprocess moves to step 516.

In response to the control plane of the MSP not providing the service,the host logs a failure of the service request (in step 516), whereafterthe process terminates. However, if the control plane of the MSPprovides the service, the process at step 518 executes a further queryto determine whether an access plane end-point is defined in thecustomer tenancy for the service. For instance, the host determineswhether a management gateway in the access plane (that co-resides withthe customers data plane in the customer tenancy) has been set up toaccept service requests. If the response to the query in step 518 isaffirmative, then the process moves to step 520. If the response to thequery of step 518 is negative, then the process moves to step 516,wherein the host logs a failure of the service request.

At step 520, a connection is initiated from the access plane of the MSPto the control plane of the MSP. At step 522, the control plane of theMSP executes a query to determine whether the initiated connectionoriginates from the access plane of the MSP that resides in the customertenancy. If the response to this query is affirmative, then the processmoves to step 526, else the process moves to step 524. At step 524,i.e., upon the control plane of the MSP determining that the connectionhas not originated from the access plane, a message indicating anunsuccessful connection is transmitted from the control plane to thehost, whereafter the host logs a failure of the connection request instep 516. By one embodiment, the control plane of the MSP is configuredto determine whether the connection request originates from the MSPsaccess plane by examining an address included in the service request. Ifthe address corresponds to the global unique IP address of themanagement gateway included in the access plane of the MSP, the controlplane determines successfully that the connection under considerationoriginated from the access plane.

At step 526, the control plane of the MSP proceeds to authenticate thehost requesting the service. By one embodiment, the authentication isperformed based on a certificate included in the service request. It isnoted that in the configuration process as illustrated in FIG. 4B, thecontrol plane of the MSP allocates a unique certificate to each host(e.g., the host tag and a region tag) whose services are being managedby the MSP. In this manner, at step 528 the control plane may verifywhether the certificate included in the service request corresponds toan authentic host. Specifically, the process in step 528 determineswhether the request is to be allowed based on the authentication processperformed with respect to the certificate. If the request is to beallowed, the process moves to step 530, else the process moves step 524.

At step 524, i.e., upon the request not being allowed, a messageindicating an unsuccessful request service is transmitted from thecontrol plane to the host, whereafter the host logs a failure of theservice request in step 516. In response to the request being allowed,at 530, the request is accepted for execution e.g., in the case of anemail delivery request, the control plane accepts the email for deliveryto it's intended destination. Thereafter, the process moves to step 532,wherein a message indicating successful service completion istransmitted from the control plane to the host. The host at step 534logs the service request as being successfully executed.

Thus, by embodiments described above, a single instance of a MSP'scontrol plane deployed in a region of a cloud environment (rather thanin a datacenter) interacts with multiple MSP access planes (one for eachcustomer tenancy included in the region), and provides managed servicesfor different host machines. The access planes provide access for bothmanaged automated and manual management of related customerenvironment(s) by MSP's control plane services and managed cloudservices authorized personnel. The managed services architecturedescribed in the above embodiments offers transparent managed servicesat a scale appropriate for efficient managed service provideroperations. Additionally, the managed services architecture of thepresent disclosure incurs at least six distinct capabilities that areavailable simultaneously and continuously. All of these capabilities areprovided to separate data planes of software products and data ownedentirely by different customers. The capabilities include at least:

1. The ability for MSP authorized personnel to access a customer'smanaged environment as needed to facilitate providing services, withemployee attrition within the MSP requiring no changes to the customer'smanaged environment(s).

2. The ability for MSP authorized personnel to access services operatedwithin the control plane.

3. The ability for services operated within the control plane to accessa customer's managed environment's services.

4. The ability for a customer's environment to access and utilizeautomated services operated within the Control Plane.

5. The ability to perform automated management of a customer's managedenvironment through the control plane.

6. The ability to perform operations across multiple managedenvironments to facilitate en masse operations as necessary.

Furthermore, advantages incurred by the managed services architecture ofthe present disclosure include at least: a reduction in control planefailure domains to more closely match the failure domains of the managedenvironments being serviced within the cloud infrastructure; a reductionin network complexity, cost, and latency between the control plane andaccess planes in the most commonly managed scenarios; and separation ofMSP personnel access.

Example Infrastructure as Service Architectures

As noted above, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is one particulartype of cloud computing. IaaS can be configured to provide virtualizedcomputing resources over a public network (e.g., the Internet). In anIaaS model, a cloud computing provider can host the infrastructurecomponents (e.g., servers, storage devices, network nodes (e.g.,hardware), deployment software, platform virtualization (e.g., ahypervisor layer), or the like). In some cases, an IaaS provider mayalso supply a variety of services to accompany those infrastructurecomponents (e.g., billing, monitoring, logging, security, load balancingand clustering, etc.). Thus, as these services may be policy-driven,IaaS users may be able to implement policies to drive load balancing tomaintain application availability and performance.

In some instances, IaaS customers may access resources and servicesthrough a wide area network (WAN), such as the Internet, and can use thecloud provider's services to install the remaining elements of anapplication stack. For example, the user can log in to the IaaS platformto create virtual machines (VMs), install operating systems (OSs) oneach VM, deploy middleware such as databases, create storage buckets forworkloads and backups, and even install enterprise software into thatVM. Customers can then use the provider's services to perform variousfunctions, including balancing network traffic, troubleshootingapplication issues, monitoring performance, managing disaster recovery,etc.

In most cases, a cloud computing model will require the participation ofa cloud provider. The cloud provider may, but need not be, a third-partyservice that specializes in providing (e.g., offering, renting, selling)IaaS. An entity might also opt to deploy a private cloud, becoming itsown provider of infrastructure services.

In some examples, IaaS deployment is the process of putting a newapplication, or a new version of an application, onto a preparedapplication server or the like. It may also include the process ofpreparing the server (e.g., installing libraries, daemons, etc.). Thisis often managed by the cloud provider, below the hypervisor layer(e.g., the servers, storage, network hardware, and virtualization).Thus, the customer may be responsible for handling (OS), middleware,and/or application deployment (e.g., on self-service virtual machines(e.g., that can be spun up on demand) or the like.

In some examples, IaaS provisioning may refer to acquiring computers orvirtual hosts for use, and even installing needed libraries or serviceson them. In most cases, deployment does not include provisioning, andthe provisioning may need to be performed first.

In some cases, there are two different problems for IaaS provisioning.First, there is the initial challenge of provisioning the initial set ofinfrastructure before anything is running. Second, there is thechallenge of evolving the existing infrastructure (e.g., adding newservices, changing services, removing services, etc.) once everythinghas been provisioned. In some cases, these two challenges may beaddressed by enabling the configuration of the infrastructure to bedefined declaratively. In other words, the infrastructure (e.g., whatcomponents are needed and how they interact) can be defined by one ormore configuration files. Thus, the overall topology of theinfrastructure (e.g., what resources depend on which, and how they eachwork together) can be described declaratively. In some instances, oncethe topology is defined, a workflow can be generated that creates and/ormanages the different components described in the configuration files.

In some examples, an infrastructure may have many interconnectedelements. For example, there may be one or more virtual private clouds(VPCs) (e.g., a potentially on-demand pool of configurable and/or sharedcomputing resources), also known as a core network. In some examples,there may also be one or more security group rules provisioned to definehow the security of the network will be set up and one or more virtualmachines (VMs). Other infrastructure elements may also be provisioned,such as a load balancer, a database, or the like. As more and moreinfrastructure elements are desired and/or added, the infrastructure mayincrementally evolve.

In some instances, continuous deployment techniques may be employed toenable deployment of infrastructure code across various virtualcomputing environments. Additionally, the described techniques canenable infrastructure management within these environments. In someexamples, service teams can write code that is desired to be deployed toone or more, but often many, different production environments (e.g.,across various different geographic locations, sometimes spanning theentire world). However, in some examples, the infrastructure on whichthe code will be deployed must first be set up. In some instances, theprovisioning can be done manually, a provisioning tool may be utilizedto provision the resources, and/or deployment tools may be utilized todeploy the code once the infrastructure is provisioned.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram 600 illustrating an example pattern of an IaaSarchitecture, according to at least one embodiment. Service operators602 can be communicatively coupled to a secure host tenancy 604 that caninclude a virtual cloud network (VCN) 606 and a secure host subnet 608.In some examples, the service operators 602 may be using one or moreclient computing devices, which may be portable handheld devices (e.g.,an iPhone®, cellular telephone, an iPad®, computing tablet, a personaldigital assistant (PDA)) or wearable devices (e.g., a Google Glass® headmounted display), running software such as Microsoft Windows Mobile®,and/or a variety of mobile operating systems such as iOS, Windows Phone,Android, BlackBerry 8, Palm OS, and the like, and being Internet,e-mail, short message service (SMS), Blackberry®, or other communicationprotocol enabled. Alternatively, the client computing devices can begeneral purpose personal computers including, by way of example,personal computers and/or laptop computers running various versions ofMicrosoft Windows®, Apple Macintosh®, and/or Linux operating systems.The client computing devices can be workstation computers running any ofa variety of commercially-available UNIX® or UNIX-like operatingsystems, including without limitation the variety of GNU/Linux operatingsystems, such as for example, Google Chrome OS. Alternatively, or inaddition, client computing devices may be any other electronic device,such as a thin-client computer, an Internet-enabled gaming system (e.g.,a Microsoft Xbox gaming console with or without a Kinect® gesture inputdevice), and/or a personal messaging device, capable of communicatingover a network that can access the VCN 606 and/or the Internet.

The VCN 606 can include a local peering gateway (LPG) 610 that can becommunicatively coupled to a secure shell (SSH) VCN 612 via an LPG 610contained in the SSH VCN 612. The SSH VCN 612 can include an SSH subnet614, and the SSH VCN 612 can be communicatively coupled to a controlplane VCN 616 via the LPG 610 contained in the control plane VCN 616.Also, the SSH VCN 612 can be communicatively coupled to a data plane VCN618 via an LPG 610. The control plane VCN 616 and the data plane VCN 618can be contained in a service tenancy 619 that can be owned and/oroperated by the IaaS provider.

The control plane VCN 616 can include a control plane demilitarized zone(DMZ) tier 620 that acts as a perimeter network (e.g., portions of acorporate network between the corporate intranet and external networks).The DMZ-based servers may have restricted responsibilities and help keepsecurity breaches contained. Additionally, the DMZ tier 620 can includeone or more load balancer (LB) subnet(s) 622, a control plane app tier624 that can include app subnet(s) 626, a control plane data tier 628that can include database (DB) subnet(s) 630 (e.g., frontend DBsubnet(s) and/or backend DB subnet(s)). The LB subnet(s) 622 containedin the control plane DMZ tier 620 can be communicatively coupled to theapp subnet(s) 626 contained in the control plane app tier 624 and anInternet gateway 634 that can be contained in the control plane VCN 616,and the app subnet(s) 626 can be communicatively coupled to the DBsubnet(s) 630 contained in the control plane data tier 628 and a servicegateway 636 and a network address translation (NAT) gateway 638. Thecontrol plane VCN 616 can include the service gateway 636 and the NATgateway 638.

The control plane VCN 616 can include a data plane mirror app tier 640that can include app subnet(s) 626. The app subnet(s) 626 contained inthe data plane mirror app tier 640 can include a virtual networkinterface controller (VNIC) 642 that can execute a compute instance 644.The compute instance 644 can communicatively couple the app subnet(s)626 of the data plane mirror app tier 640 to app subnet(s) 626 that canbe contained in a data plane app tier 646.

The data plane VCN 618 can include the data plane app tier 646, a dataplane DMZ tier 648, and a data plane data tier 650. The data plane DMZtier 648 can include LB subnet(s) 622 that can be communicativelycoupled to the app subnet(s) 626 of the data plane app tier 646 and theInternet gateway 634 of the data plane VCN 618. The app subnet(s) 626can be communicatively coupled to the service gateway 636 of the dataplane VCN 618 and the NAT gateway 638 of the data plane VCN 618. Thedata plane data tier 650 can also include the DB subnet(s) 630 that canbe communicatively coupled to the app subnet(s) 626 of the data planeapp tier 646.

The Internet gateway 634 of the control plane VCN 616 and of the dataplane VCN 618 can be communicatively coupled to a metadata managementservice 652 that can be communicatively coupled to public Internet 654.Public Internet 654 can be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway638 of the control plane VCN 616 and of the data plane VCN 618. Theservice gateway 636 of the control plane VCN 616 and of the data planeVCN 618 can be communicatively couple to cloud services 656.

In some examples, the service gateway 636 of the control plane VCN 616or of the data plane VCN 618 can make application programming interface(API) calls to cloud services 656 without going through public Internet654. The API calls to cloud services 656 from the service gateway 636can be one-way: the service gateway 636 can make API calls to cloudservices 656, and cloud services 656 can send requested data to theservice gateway 636. But, cloud services 656 may not initiate API callsto the service gateway 636.

In some examples, the secure host tenancy 604 can be directly connectedto the service tenancy 619, which may be otherwise isolated. The securehost subnet 608 can communicate with the SSH subnet 614 through an LPG610 that may enable two-way communication over an otherwise isolatedsystem. Connecting the secure host subnet 608 to the SSH subnet 614 maygive the secure host subnet 608 access to other entities within theservice tenancy 619.

The control plane VCN 616 may allow users of the service tenancy 619 toset up or otherwise provision desired resources. Desired resourcesprovisioned in the control plane VCN 616 may be deployed or otherwiseused in the data plane VCN 618. In some examples, the control plane VCN616 can be isolated from the data plane VCN 618, and the data planemirror app tier 640 of the control plane VCN 616 can communicate withthe data plane app tier 646 of the data plane VCN 618 via VNICs 642 thatcan be contained in the data plane mirror app tier 640 and the dataplane app tier 646.

In some examples, users of the system, or customers, can make requests,for example create, read, update, or delete (CRUD) operations, throughpublic Internet 654 that can communicate the requests to the metadatamanagement service 652. The metadata management service 652 cancommunicate the request to the control plane VCN 616 through theInternet gateway 634. The request can be received by the LB subnet(s)622 contained in the control plane DMZ tier 620. The LB subnet(s) 622may determine that the request is valid, and in response to thisdetermination, the LB subnet(s) 622 can transmit the request to appsubnet(s) 626 contained in the control plane app tier 624. If therequest is validated and requires a call to public Internet 654, thecall to public Internet 654 may be transmitted to the NAT gateway 638that can make the call to public Internet 654. Memory that may bedesired to be stored by the request can be stored in the DB subnet(s)630.

In some examples, the data plane mirror app tier 640 can facilitatedirect communication between the control plane VCN 616 and the dataplane VCN 618. For example, changes, updates, or other suitablemodifications to configuration may be desired to be applied to theresources contained in the data plane VCN 618. Via a VNIC 642, thecontrol plane VCN 616 can directly communicate with, and can therebyexecute the changes, updates, or other suitable modifications toconfiguration to, resources contained in the data plane VCN 618.

In some embodiments, the control plane VCN 616 and the data plane VCN618 can be contained in the service tenancy 619. In this case, the user,or the customer, of the system may not own or operate either the controlplane VCN 616 or the data plane VCN 618. Instead, the IaaS provider mayown or operate the control plane VCN 616 and the data plane VCN 618,both of which may be contained in the service tenancy 619. Thisembodiment can enable isolation of networks that may prevent users orcustomers from interacting with other users', or other customers',resources. Also, this embodiment may allow users or customers of thesystem to store databases privately without needing to rely on publicInternet 654, which may not have a desired level of security, forstorage.

In other embodiments, the LB subnet(s) 622 contained in the controlplane VCN 616 can be configured to receive a signal from the servicegateway 636. In this embodiment, the control plane VCN 616 and the dataplane VCN 618 may be configured to be called by a customer of the IaaSprovider without calling public Internet 654. Customers of the IaaSprovider may desire this embodiment since database(s) that the customersuse may be controlled by the IaaS provider and may be stored on theservice tenancy 619, which may be isolated from public Internet 654.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram 700 illustrating another example pattern of anIaaS architecture, according to at least one embodiment. Serviceoperators 702 (e.g. service operators 602 of FIG. 6 ) can becommunicatively coupled to a secure host tenancy 704 (e.g. the securehost tenancy 604 of FIG. 6 ) that can include a virtual cloud network(VCN) 706 (e.g. the VCN 606 of FIG. 6 ) and a secure host subnet 708(e.g. the secure host subnet 608 of FIG. 6 ). The VCN 706 can include alocal peering gateway (LPG) 710 (e.g. the LPG 610 of FIG. 6 ) that canbe communicatively coupled to a secure shell (SSH) VCN 712 (e.g. the SSHVCN 612 of FIG. 6 ) via an LPG 610 contained in the SSH VCN 712. The SSHVCN 712 can include an SSH subnet 714 (e.g. the SSH subnet 614 of FIG. 6), and the SSH VCN 712 can be communicatively coupled to a control planeVCN 716 (e.g. the control plane VCN 616 of FIG. 6 ) via an LPG 710contained in the control plane VCN 716. The control plane VCN 716 can becontained in a service tenancy 719 (e.g. the service tenancy 619 of FIG.6 ), and the data plane VCN 718 (e.g. the data plane VCN 618 of FIG. 6 )can be contained in a customer tenancy 721 that may be owned or operatedby users, or customers, of the system.

The control plane VCN 716 can include a control plane DMZ tier 720 (e.g.the control plane DMZ tier 620 of FIG. 6 ) that can include LB subnet(s)722 (e.g. LB subnet(s) 622 of FIG. 6 ), a control plane app tier 724(e.g. the control plane app tier 624 of FIG. 6 ) that can include appsubnet(s) 726 (e.g. app subnet(s) 626 of FIG. 6 ), a control plane datatier 728 (e.g. the control plane data tier 628 of FIG. 6 ) that caninclude database (DB) subnet(s) 730 (e.g. similar to DB subnet(s) 630 ofFIG. 6 ). The LB subnet(s) 722 contained in the control plane DMZ tier720 can be communicatively coupled to the app subnet(s) 726 contained inthe control plane app tier 724 and an Internet gateway 734 (e.g. theInternet gateway 634 of FIG. 6 ) that can be contained in the controlplane VCN 716, and the app subnet(s) 726 can be communicatively coupledto the DB subnet(s) 730 contained in the control plane data tier 728 anda service gateway 736 (e.g. the service gateway of FIG. 6 ) and anetwork address translation (NAT) gateway 738 (e.g. the NAT gateway 638of FIG. 6 ). The control plane VCN 716 can include the service gateway736 and the NAT gateway 738.

The control plane VCN 716 can include a data plane mirror app tier 740(e.g. the data plane mirror app tier 640 of FIG. 6 ) that can includeapp subnet(s) 726. The app subnet(s) 726 contained in the data planemirror app tier 740 can include a virtual network interface controller(VNIC) 742 (e.g. the VNIC of 642) that can execute a compute instance744 (e.g. similar to the compute instance 644 of FIG. 6 ). The computeinstance 744 can facilitate communication between the app subnet(s) 726of the data plane mirror app tier 740 and the app subnet(s) 726 that canbe contained in a data plane app tier 746 (e.g. the data plane app tier646 of FIG. 6 ) via the VNIC 742 contained in the data plane mirror apptier 740 and the VNIC 742 contained in the data plane app tier 746.

The Internet gateway 734 contained in the control plane VCN 716 can becommunicatively coupled to a metadata management service 752 (e.g. themetadata management service 652 of FIG. 6 ) that can be communicativelycoupled to public Internet 754 (e.g. public Internet 654 of FIG. 6 ).Public Internet 754 can be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway738 contained in the control plane VCN 716. The service gateway 736contained in the control plane VCN 716 can be communicatively couple tocloud services 756 (e.g. cloud services 656 of FIG. 6 ).

In some examples, the data plane VCN 718 can be contained in thecustomer tenancy 721. In this case, the IaaS provider may provide thecontrol plane VCN 716 for each customer, and the IaaS provider may, foreach customer, set up a unique compute instance 744 that is contained inthe service tenancy 719. Each compute instance 744 may allowcommunication between the control plane VCN 716, contained in theservice tenancy 719, and the data plane VCN 718 that is contained in thecustomer tenancy 721. The compute instance 744 may allow resources, thatare provisioned in the control plane VCN 716 that is contained in theservice tenancy 719, to be deployed or otherwise used in the data planeVCN 718 that is contained in the customer tenancy 721.

In other examples, the customer of the IaaS provider may have databasesthat live in the customer tenancy 721. In this example, the controlplane VCN 716 can include the data plane mirror app tier 740 that caninclude app subnet(s) 726. The data plane mirror app tier 740 can residein the data plane VCN 718, but the data plane mirror app tier 740 maynot live in the data plane VCN 718. That is, the data plane mirror apptier 740 may have access to the customer tenancy 721, but the data planemirror app tier 740 may not exist in the data plane VCN 718 or be ownedor operated by the customer of the IaaS provider. The data plane mirrorapp tier 740 may be configured to make calls to the data plane VCN 718but may not be configured to make calls to any entity contained in thecontrol plane VCN 716. The customer may desire to deploy or otherwiseuse resources in the data plane VCN 718 that are provisioned in thecontrol plane VCN 716, and the data plane mirror app tier 740 canfacilitate the desired deployment, or other usage of resources, of thecustomer.

In some embodiments, the customer of the IaaS provider can apply filtersto the data plane VCN 718. In this embodiment, the customer candetermine what the data plane VCN 718 can access, and the customer mayrestrict access to public Internet 754 from the data plane VCN 718. TheIaaS provider may not be able to apply filters or otherwise controlaccess of the data plane VCN 718 to any outside networks or databases.Applying filters and controls by the customer onto the data plane VCN718, contained in the customer tenancy 721, can help isolate the dataplane VCN 718 from other customers and from public Internet 754.

In some embodiments, cloud services 756 can be called by the servicegateway 736 to access services that may not exist on public Internet754, on the control plane VCN 716, or on the data plane VCN 718. Theconnection between cloud services 756 and the control plane VCN 716 orthe data plane VCN 718 may not be live or continuous. Cloud services 756may exist on a different network owned or operated by the IaaS provider.Cloud services 756 may be configured to receive calls from the servicegateway 736 and may be configured to not receive calls from publicInternet 754. Some cloud services 756 may be isolated from other cloudservices 756, and the control plane VCN 716 may be isolated from cloudservices 756 that may not be in the same region as the control plane VCN716. For example, the control plane VCN 716 may be located in “Region1,” and cloud service “Deployment 6,” may be located in Region 1 and in“Region 2.” If a call to Deployment 6 is made by the service gateway 736contained in the control plane VCN 716 located in Region 1, the call maybe transmitted to Deployment 6 in Region 1. In this example, the controlplane VCN 716, or Deployment 6 in Region 1, may not be communicativelycoupled to, or otherwise in communication with, Deployment 6 in Region2.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram 800 illustrating another example pattern of anIaaS architecture, according to at least one embodiment. Serviceoperators 802 (e.g. service operators 602 of FIG. 6 ) can becommunicatively coupled to a secure host tenancy 804 (e.g. the securehost tenancy 604 of FIG. 6 ) that can include a virtual cloud network(VCN) 806 (e.g. the VCN 606 of FIG. 6 ) and a secure host subnet 808(e.g. the secure host subnet 608 of FIG. 6 ). The VCN 806 can include anLPG 810 (e.g. the LPG 610 of FIG. 6 ) that can be communicativelycoupled to an SSH VCN 812 (e.g. the SSH VCN 612 of FIG. 6 ) via an LPG810 contained in the SSH VCN 812. The SSH VCN 812 can include an SSHsubnet 814 (e.g. the SSH subnet 614 of FIG. 6 ), and the SSH VCN 812 canbe communicatively coupled to a control plane VCN 816 (e.g. the controlplane VCN 616 of FIG. 6 ) via an LPG 810 contained in the control planeVCN 816 and to a data plane VCN 818 (e.g. the data plane 618 of FIG. 6 )via an LPG 810 contained in the data plane VCN 818. The control planeVCN 816 and the data plane VCN 818 can be contained in a service tenancy819 (e.g. the service tenancy 619 of FIG. 6 ).

The control plane VCN 816 can include a control plane DMZ tier 820 (e.g.the control plane DMZ tier 620 of FIG. 6 ) that can include loadbalancer (LB) subnet(s) 822 (e.g. LB subnet(s) 622 of FIG. 6 ), acontrol plane app tier 824 (e.g. the control plane app tier 624 of FIG.6 ) that can include app subnet(s) 826 (e.g. similar to app subnet(s)626 of FIG. 6 ), a control plane data tier 828 (e.g. the control planedata tier 628 of FIG. 6 ) that can include DB subnet(s) 830. The LBsubnet(s) 822 contained in the control plane DMZ tier 820 can becommunicatively coupled to the app subnet(s) 826 contained in thecontrol plane app tier 824 and to an Internet gateway 834 (e.g. theInternet gateway 634 of FIG. 6 ) that can be contained in the controlplane VCN 816, and the app subnet(s) 826 can be communicatively coupledto the DB subnet(s) 830 contained in the control plane data tier 828 andto a service gateway 836 (e.g. the service gateway of FIG. 6 ) and anetwork address translation (NAT) gateway 838 (e.g. the NAT gateway 638of FIG. 6 ). The control plane VCN 816 can include the service gateway836 and the NAT gateway 838.

The data plane VCN 818 can include a data plane app tier 846 (e.g. thedata plane app tier 646 of FIG. 6 ), a data plane DMZ tier 848 (e.g. thedata plane DMZ tier 648 of FIG. 6 ), and a data plane data tier 850(e.g. the data plane data tier 650 of FIG. 6 ). The data plane DMZ tier848 can include LB subnet(s) 822 that can be communicatively coupled totrusted app subnet(s) 860 and untrusted app subnet(s) 862 of the dataplane app tier 846 and the Internet gateway 834 contained in the dataplane VCN 818. The trusted app subnet(s) 860 can be communicativelycoupled to the service gateway 836 contained in the data plane VCN 818,the NAT gateway 838 contained in the data plane VCN 818, and DBsubnet(s) 830 contained in the data plane data tier 850. The untrustedapp subnet(s) 862 can be communicatively coupled to the service gateway836 contained in the data plane VCN 818 and DB subnet(s) 830 containedin the data plane data tier 850. The data plane data tier 850 caninclude DB subnet(s) 830 that can be communicatively coupled to theservice gateway 836 contained in the data plane VCN 818.

The untrusted app subnet(s) 862 can include one or more primary VNICs864(1)-(N) that can be communicatively coupled to tenant virtualmachines (VMs) 866(1)-(N). Each tenant VM 866(1)-(N) can becommunicatively coupled to a respective app subnet 867(1)-(N) that canbe contained in respective container egress VCNs 868(1)-(N) that can becontained in respective customer tenancies 870(1)-(N). Respectivesecondary VNICs 872(1)-(N) can facilitate communication between theuntrusted app subnet(s) 862 contained in the data plane VCN 818 and theapp subnet contained in the container egress VCNs 868(1)-(N). Eachcontainer egress VCNs 868(1)-(N) can include a NAT gateway 838 that canbe communicatively coupled to public Internet 854 (e.g. public Internet654 of FIG. 6 ).

The Internet gateway 834 contained in the control plane VCN 816 andcontained in the data plane VCN 818 can be communicatively coupled to ametadata management service 852 (e.g. the metadata management system 652of FIG. 6 ) that can be communicatively coupled to public Internet 854.Public Internet 854 can be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway838 contained in the control plane VCN 816 and contained in the dataplane VCN 818. The service gateway 836 contained in the control planeVCN 816 and contained in the data plane VCN 818 can be communicativelycouple to cloud services 856.

In some embodiments, the data plane VCN 818 can be integrated withcustomer tenancies 870. This integration can be useful or desirable forcustomers of the IaaS provider in some cases such as a case that maydesire support when executing code. The customer may provide code to runthat may be destructive, may communicate with other customer resources,or may otherwise cause undesirable effects. In response to this, theIaaS provider may determine whether to run code given to the IaaSprovider by the customer.

In some examples, the customer of the IaaS provider may grant temporarynetwork access to the IaaS provider and request a function to beattached to the data plane tier app 846. Code to run the function may beexecuted in the VMs 866(1)-(N), and the code may not be configured torun anywhere else on the data plane VCN 818. Each VM 866(1)-(N) may beconnected to one customer tenancy 870. Respective containers 871(1)-(N)contained in the VMs 866(1)-(N) may be configured to run the code. Inthis case, there can be a dual isolation (e.g., the containers871(1)-(N) running code, where the containers 871(1)-(N) may becontained in at least the VM 866(1)-(N) that are contained in theuntrusted app subnet(s) 862), which may help prevent incorrect orotherwise undesirable code from damaging the network of the IaaSprovider or from damaging a network of a different customer. Thecontainers 871(1)-(N) may be communicatively coupled to the customertenancy 870 and may be configured to transmit or receive data from thecustomer tenancy 870. The containers 871(1)-(N) may not be configured totransmit or receive data from any other entity in the data plane VCN818. Upon completion of running the code, the IaaS provider may kill orotherwise dispose of the containers 871(1)-(N).

In some embodiments, the trusted app subnet(s) 860 may run code that maybe owned or operated by the IaaS provider. In this embodiment, thetrusted app subnet(s) 860 may be communicatively coupled to the DBsubnet(s) 830 and be configured to execute CRUD operations in the DBsubnet(s) 830. The untrusted app subnet(s) 862 may be communicativelycoupled to the DB subnet(s) 830, but in this embodiment, the untrustedapp subnet(s) may be configured to execute read operations in the DBsubnet(s) 830. The containers 871(1)-(N) that can be contained in the VM866(1)-(N) of each customer and that may run code from the customer maynot be communicatively coupled with the DB subnet(s) 830.

In other embodiments, the control plane VCN 816 and the data plane VCN818 may not be directly communicatively coupled. In this embodiment,there may be no direct communication between the control plane VCN 816and the data plane VCN 818. However, communication can occur indirectlythrough at least one method. An LPG 810 may be established by the IaaSprovider that can facilitate communication between the control plane VCN816 and the data plane VCN 818. In another example, the control planeVCN 816 or the data plane VCN 818 can make a call to cloud services 856via the service gateway 836. For example, a call to cloud services 856from the control plane VCN 816 can include a request for a service thatcan communicate with the data plane VCN 818.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram 900 illustrating another example pattern of anIaaS architecture, according to at least one embodiment. Serviceoperators 902 (e.g. service operators 602 of FIG. 6 ) can becommunicatively coupled to a secure host tenancy 904 (e.g. the securehost tenancy 604 of FIG. 6 ) that can include a virtual cloud network(VCN) 906 (e.g. the VCN 606 of FIG. 6 ) and a secure host subnet 908(e.g. the secure host subnet 608 of FIG. 6 ). The VCN 906 can include anLPG 910 (e.g. the LPG 610 of FIG. 6 ) that can be communicativelycoupled to an SSH VCN 912 (e.g. the SSH VCN 612 of FIG. 6 ) via an LPG910 contained in the SSH VCN 912. The SSH VCN 912 can include an SSHsubnet 914 (e.g. the SSH subnet 614 of FIG. 6 ), and the SSH VCN 912 canbe communicatively coupled to a control plane VCN 916 (e.g. the controlplane VCN 616 of FIG. 6 ) via an LPG 910 contained in the control planeVCN 916 and to a data plane VCN 918 (e.g. the data plane 618 of FIG. 6 )via an LPG 910 contained in the data plane VCN 918. The control planeVCN 916 and the data plane VCN 918 can be contained in a service tenancy919 (e.g. the service tenancy 619 of FIG. 6 ).

The control plane VCN 916 can include a control plane DMZ tier 920 (e.g.the control plane DMZ tier 620 of FIG. 6 ) that can include LB subnet(s)922 (e.g. LB subnet(s) 622 of FIG. 6 ), a control plane app tier 924(e.g. the control plane app tier 624 of FIG. 6 ) that can include appsubnet(s) 926 (e.g. app subnet(s) 626 of FIG. 6 ), a control plane datatier 928 (e.g. the control plane data tier 628 of FIG. 6 ) that caninclude DB subnet(s) 930 (e.g. DB subnet(s) 830 of FIG. 8 ). The LBsubnet(s) 922 contained in the control plane DMZ tier 920 can becommunicatively coupled to the app subnet(s) 926 contained in thecontrol plane app tier 924 and to an Internet gateway 934 (e.g. theInternet gateway 634 of FIG. 6 ) that can be contained in the controlplane VCN 916, and the app subnet(s) 926 can be communicatively coupledto the DB subnet(s) 930 contained in the control plane data tier 928 andto a service gateway 936 (e.g. the service gateway of FIG. 6 ) and anetwork address translation (NAT) gateway 938 (e.g. the NAT gateway 638of FIG. 6 ). The control plane VCN 916 can include the service gateway936 and the NAT gateway 938.

The data plane VCN 918 can include a data plane app tier 946 (e.g. thedata plane app tier 646 of FIG. 6 ), a data plane DMZ tier 948 (e.g. thedata plane DMZ tier 648 of FIG. 6 ), and a data plane data tier 950(e.g. the data plane data tier 650 of FIG. 6 ). The data plane DMZ tier948 can include LB subnet(s) 922 that can be communicatively coupled totrusted app subnet(s) 960 (e.g. trusted app subnet(s) 860 of FIG. 8 )and untrusted app subnet(s) 962 (e.g. untrusted app subnet(s) 862 ofFIG. 8 ) of the data plane app tier 946 and the Internet gateway 934contained in the data plane VCN 918. The trusted app subnet(s) 960 canbe communicatively coupled to the service gateway 936 contained in thedata plane VCN 918, the NAT gateway 938 contained in the data plane VCN918, and DB subnet(s) 930 contained in the data plane data tier 950. Theuntrusted app subnet(s) 962 can be communicatively coupled to theservice gateway 936 contained in the data plane VCN 918 and DB subnet(s)930 contained in the data plane data tier 950. The data plane data tier950 can include DB subnet(s) 930 that can be communicatively coupled tothe service gateway 936 contained in the data plane VCN 918.

The untrusted app subnet(s) 962 can include primary VNICs 964(1)-(N)that can be communicatively coupled to tenant virtual machines (VMs)966(1)-(N) residing within the untrusted app subnet(s) 962. Each tenantVM 966(1)-(N) can run code in a respective container 967(1)-(N), and becommunicatively coupled to an app subnet 926 that can be contained in adata plane app tier 946 that can be contained in a container egress VCN968. Respective secondary VNICs 972(1)-(N) can facilitate communicationbetween the untrusted app subnet(s) 962 contained in the data plane VCN918 and the app subnet contained in the container egress VCN 968. Thecontainer egress VCN can include a NAT gateway 938 that can becommunicatively coupled to public Internet 954 (e.g. public Internet 654of FIG. 6 ).

The Internet gateway 934 contained in the control plane VCN 916 andcontained in the data plane VCN 918 can be communicatively coupled to ametadata management service 952 (e.g. the metadata management system 652of FIG. 6 ) that can be communicatively coupled to public Internet 954.Public Internet 954 can be communicatively coupled to the NAT gateway938 contained in the control plane VCN 916 and contained in the dataplane VCN 918. The service gateway 936 contained in the control planeVCN 916 and contained in the data plane VCN 918 can be communicativelycouple to cloud services 956.

In some examples, the pattern illustrated by the architecture of blockdiagram 900 of FIG. 9 may be considered an exception to the patternillustrated by the architecture of block diagram 800 of FIG. 8 and maybe desirable for a customer of the IaaS provider if the IaaS providercannot directly communicate with the customer (e.g., a disconnectedregion). The respective containers 967(1)-(N) that are contained in theVMs 966(1)-(N) for each customer can be accessed in real-time by thecustomer. The containers 967(1)-(N) may be configured to make calls torespective secondary VNICs 972(1)-(N) contained in app subnet(s) 926 ofthe data plane app tier 946 that can be contained in the containeregress VCN 968. The secondary VNICs 972(1)-(N) can transmit the calls tothe NAT gateway 938 that may transmit the calls to public Internet 954.In this example, the containers 967(1)-(N) that can be accessed inreal-time by the customer can be isolated from the control plane VCN 916and can be isolated from other entities contained in the data plane VCN918. The containers 967(1)-(N) may also be isolated from resources fromother customers.

In other examples, the customer can use the containers 967(1)-(N) tocall cloud services 956. In this example, the customer may run code inthe containers 967(1)-(N) that requests a service from cloud services956. The containers 967(1)-(N) can transmit this request to thesecondary VNICs 972(1)-(N) that can transmit the request to the NATgateway that can transmit the request to public Internet 954. PublicInternet 954 can transmit the request to LB subnet(s) 922 contained inthe control plane VCN 916 via the Internet gateway 934. In response todetermining the request is valid, the LB subnet(s) can transmit therequest to app subnet(s) 926 that can transmit the request to cloudservices 956 via the service gateway 936.

It should be appreciated that IaaS architectures 600, 700, 800, 900depicted in the figures may have other components than those depicted.Further, the embodiments shown in the figures are only some examples ofa cloud infrastructure system that may incorporate an embodiment of thedisclosure. In some other embodiments, the IaaS systems may have more orfewer components than shown in the figures, may combine two or morecomponents, or may have a different configuration or arrangement ofcomponents.

In certain embodiments, the IaaS systems described herein may include asuite of applications, middleware, and database service offerings thatare delivered to a customer in a self-service, subscription-based,elastically scalable, reliable, highly available, and secure manner. Anexample of such an IaaS system is the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)provided by the present assignee.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example computer system 1000, in which variousembodiments may be implemented. The system 1000 may be used to implementany of the computer systems described above. As shown in the figure,computer system 1000 includes a processing unit 1004 that communicateswith a number of peripheral subsystems via a bus subsystem 1002. Theseperipheral subsystems may include a processing acceleration unit 1006,an I/O subsystem 1008, a storage subsystem 1018 and a communicationssubsystem 1024. Storage subsystem 1018 includes tangiblecomputer-readable storage media 1022 and a system memory 1010.

Bus subsystem 1002 provides a mechanism for letting the variouscomponents and subsystems of computer system 1000 communicate with eachother as intended. Although bus subsystem 1002 is shown schematically asa single bus, alternative embodiments of the bus subsystem may utilizemultiple buses. Bus subsystem 1002 may be any of several types of busstructures including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheralbus, and a local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. Forexample, such architectures may include an Industry StandardArchitecture (ISA) bus, Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, EnhancedISA (EISA) bus, Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) localbus, and Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus, which can beimplemented as a Mezzanine bus manufactured to the IEEE P1386.1standard.

Processing unit 1004, which can be implemented as one or more integratedcircuits (e.g., a conventional microprocessor or microcontroller),controls the operation of computer system 1000. One or more processorsmay be included in processing unit 1004. These processors may includesingle core or multicore processors. In certain embodiments, processingunit 1004 may be implemented as one or more independent processing units1032 and/or 1034 with single or multicore processors included in eachprocessing unit. In other embodiments, processing unit 1004 may also beimplemented as a quad-core processing unit formed by integrating twodual-core processors into a single chip.

In various embodiments, processing unit 1004 can execute a variety ofprograms in response to program code and can maintain multipleconcurrently executing programs or processes. At any given time, some orall of the program code to be executed can be resident in processor(s)1004 and/or in storage subsystem 1018. Through suitable programming,processor(s) 1004 can provide various functionalities described above.Computer system 1000 may additionally include a processing accelerationunit 1006, which can include a digital signal processor (DSP), aspecial-purpose processor, and/or the like.

I/O subsystem 1008 may include user interface input devices and userinterface output devices. User interface input devices may include akeyboard, pointing devices such as a mouse or trackball, a touchpad ortouch screen incorporated into a display, a scroll wheel, a click wheel,a dial, a button, a switch, a keypad, audio input devices with voicecommand recognition systems, microphones, and other types of inputdevices. User interface input devices may include, for example, motionsensing and/or gesture recognition devices such as the Microsoft Kinect®motion sensor that enables users to control and interact with an inputdevice, such as the Microsoft Xbox® 360 game controller, through anatural user interface using gestures and spoken commands. Userinterface input devices may also include eye gesture recognition devicessuch as the Google Glass® blink detector that detects eye activity(e.g., ‘blinking’ while taking pictures and/or making a menu selection)from users and transforms the eye gestures as input into an input device(e.g., Google Glass®). Additionally, user interface input devices mayinclude voice recognition sensing devices that enable users to interactwith voice recognition systems (e.g., Siri® navigator), through voicecommands.

User interface input devices may also include, without limitation, threedimensional (3D) mice, joysticks or pointing sticks, gamepads andgraphic tablets, and audio/visual devices such as speakers, digitalcameras, digital camcorders, portable media players, webcams, imagescanners, fingerprint scanners, barcode reader 3D scanners, 3D printers,laser rangefinders, and eye gaze tracking devices. Additionally, userinterface input devices may include, for example, medical imaging inputdevices such as computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging,position emission tomography, medical ultrasonography devices. Userinterface input devices may also include, for example, audio inputdevices such as MIDI keyboards, digital musical instruments and thelike.

User interface output devices may include a display subsystem, indicatorlights, or non-visual displays such as audio output devices, etc. Thedisplay subsystem may be a cathode ray tube (CRT), a flat-panel device,such as that using a liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma display, aprojection device, a touch screen, and the like. In general, use of theterm “output device” is intended to include all possible types ofdevices and mechanisms for outputting information from computer system1000 to a user or other computer. For example, user interface outputdevices may include, without limitation, a variety of display devicesthat visually convey text, graphics and audio/video information such asmonitors, printers, speakers, headphones, automotive navigation systems,plotters, voice output devices, and modems.

Computer system 1000 may comprise a storage subsystem 1018 thatcomprises software elements, shown as being currently located within asystem memory 1010. System memory 1010 may store program instructionsthat are loadable and executable on processing unit 1004, as well asdata generated during the execution of these programs.

Depending on the configuration and type of computer system 1000, systemmemory 1010 may be volatile (such as random access memory (RAM)) and/ornon-volatile (such as read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, etc.) TheRAM typically contains data and/or program modules that are immediatelyaccessible to and/or presently being operated and executed by processingunit 1004. In some implementations, system memory 1010 may includemultiple different types of memory, such as static random access memory(SRAM) or dynamic random access memory (DRAM). In some implementations,a basic input/output system (BIOS), containing the basic routines thathelp to transfer information between elements within computer system1000, such as during start-up, may typically be stored in the ROM. Byway of example, and not limitation, system memory 1010 also illustratesapplication programs 1012, which may include client applications, Webbrowsers, mid-tier applications, relational database management systems(RDBMS), etc., program data 1014, and an operating system 1016. By wayof example, operating system 1016 may include various versions ofMicrosoft Windows®, Apple Macintosh®, and/or Linux operating systems, avariety of commercially-available UNIX® or UNIX-like operating systems(including without limitation the variety of GNU/Linux operatingsystems, the Google Chrome® OS, and the like) and/or mobile operatingsystems such as iOS, Windows® Phone, Android® OS, BlackBerry® 10 OS, andPalm® OS operating systems.

Storage subsystem 1018 may also provide a tangible computer-readablestorage medium for storing the basic programming and data constructsthat provide the functionality of some embodiments. Software (programs,code modules, instructions) that when executed by a processor providethe functionality described above may be stored in storage subsystem1018. These software modules or instructions may be executed byprocessing unit 1004. Storage subsystem 1018 may also provide arepository for storing data used in accordance with the presentdisclosure.

Storage subsystem 1000 may also include a computer-readable storagemedia reader 1020 that can further be connected to computer-readablestorage media 1022. Together and, optionally, in combination with systemmemory 1010, computer-readable storage media 1022 may comprehensivelyrepresent remote, local, fixed, and/or removable storage devices plusstorage media for temporarily and/or more permanently containing,storing, transmitting, and retrieving computer-readable information.

Computer-readable storage media 1022 containing code, or portions ofcode, can also include any appropriate media known or used in the art,including storage media and communication media, such as but not limitedto, volatile and non-volatile, removable and non-removable mediaimplemented in any method or technology for storage and/or transmissionof information. This can include tangible computer-readable storagemedia such as RAM, ROM, electronically erasable programmable ROM(EEPROM), flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digitalversatile disk (DVD), or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices,or other tangible computer readable media. This can also includenontangible computer-readable media, such as data signals, datatransmissions, or any other medium which can be used to transmit thedesired information and which can be accessed by computing system 1000.

By way of example, computer-readable storage media 1022 may include ahard disk drive that reads from or writes to non-removable, nonvolatilemagnetic media, a magnetic disk drive that reads from or writes to aremovable, nonvolatile magnetic disk, and an optical disk drive thatreads from or writes to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk such as aCD ROM, DVD, and Blu-Ray® disk, or other optical media.Computer-readable storage media 1022 may include, but is not limited to,Zip® drives, flash memory cards, universal serial bus (USB) flashdrives, secure digital (SD) cards, DVD disks, digital video tape, andthe like. Computer-readable storage media 1022 may also include,solid-state drives (SSD) based on non-volatile memory such asflash-memory based SSDs, enterprise flash drives, solid state ROM, andthe like, SSDs based on volatile memory such as solid state RAM, dynamicRAM, static RAM, DRAM-based SSDs, magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM) SSDs, andhybrid SSDs that use a combination of DRAM and flash memory based SSDs.The disk drives and their associated computer-readable media may providenon-volatile storage of computer-readable instructions, data structures,program modules, and other data for computer system 1000.

Communications subsystem 1024 provides an interface to other computersystems and networks. Communications subsystem 1024 serves as aninterface for receiving data from and transmitting data to other systemsfrom computer system 1000. For example, communications subsystem 1024may enable computer system 1000 to connect to one or more devices viathe Internet. In some embodiments communications subsystem 1024 caninclude radio frequency (RF) transceiver components for accessingwireless voice and/or data networks (e.g., using cellular telephonetechnology, advanced data network technology, such as 3G, 4G or EDGE(enhanced data rates for global evolution), WiFi (IEEE 802.11 familystandards, or other mobile communication technologies, or anycombination thereof), global positioning system (GPS) receivercomponents, and/or other components. In some embodiments communicationssubsystem 1024 can provide wired network connectivity (e.g., Ethernet)in addition to or instead of a wireless interface.

In some embodiments, communications subsystem 1024 may also receiveinput communication in the form of structured and/or unstructured datafeeds 1026, event streams 1028, event updates 1030, and the like onbehalf of one or more users who may use computer system 1000.

By way of example, communications subsystem 1024 may be configured toreceive data feeds 1026 in real-time from users of social networksand/or other communication services such as Twitter® feeds, Facebook®updates, web feeds such as Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds, and/orreal-time updates from one or more third party information sources.

Additionally, communications subsystem 1024 may also be configured toreceive data in the form of continuous data streams, which may includeevent streams 1028 of real-time events and/or event updates 1030, thatmay be continuous or unbounded in nature with no explicit end. Examplesof applications that generate continuous data may include, for example,sensor data applications, financial tickers, network performancemeasuring tools (e.g. network monitoring and traffic managementapplications), clickstream analysis tools, automobile trafficmonitoring, and the like.

Communications subsystem 1024 may also be configured to output thestructured and/or unstructured data feeds 1026, event streams 1028,event updates 1030, and the like to one or more databases that may be incommunication with one or more streaming data source computers coupledto computer system 1000.

Computer system 1000 can be one of various types, including a handheldportable device (e.g., an iPhone® cellular phone, an iPad® computingtablet, a PDA), a wearable device (e.g., a Google Glass® head mounteddisplay), a PC, a workstation, a mainframe, a kiosk, a server rack, orany other data processing system.

Due to the ever-changing nature of computers and networks, thedescription of computer system 1000 depicted in the figure is intendedonly as a specific example. Many other configurations having more orfewer components than the system depicted in the figure are possible.For example, customized hardware might also be used and/or particularelements might be implemented in hardware, firmware, software (includingapplets), or a combination. Further, connection to other computingdevices, such as network input/output devices, may be employed. Based onthe disclosure and teachings provided herein, a person of ordinary skillin the art will appreciate other ways and/or methods to implement thevarious embodiments.

Although specific embodiments have been described, variousmodifications, alterations, alternative constructions, and equivalentsare also encompassed within the scope of the disclosure. Embodiments arenot restricted to operation within certain specific data processingenvironments, but are free to operate within a plurality of dataprocessing environments. Additionally, although embodiments have beendescribed using a particular series of transactions and steps, it shouldbe apparent to those skilled in the art that the scope of the presentdisclosure is not limited to the described series of transactions andsteps. Various features and aspects of the above-described embodimentsmay be used individually or jointly.

Further, while embodiments have been described using a particularcombination of hardware and software, it should be recognized that othercombinations of hardware and software are also within the scope of thepresent disclosure. Embodiments may be implemented only in hardware, oronly in software, or using combinations thereof. The various processesdescribed herein can be implemented on the same processor or differentprocessors in any combination. Accordingly, where components or modulesare described as being configured to perform certain operations, suchconfiguration can be accomplished, e.g., by designing electroniccircuits to perform the operation, by programming programmableelectronic circuits (such as microprocessors) to perform the operation,or any combination thereof. Processes can communicate using a variety oftechniques including but not limited to conventional techniques forinter process communication, and different pairs of processes may usedifferent techniques, or the same pair of processes may use differenttechniques at different times.

The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to be regarded in anillustrative rather than a restrictive sense. It will, however, beevident that additions, subtractions, deletions, and other modificationsand changes may be made thereunto without departing from the broaderspirit and scope as set forth in the claims. Thus, although specificdisclosure embodiments have been described, these are not intended to belimiting. Various modifications and equivalents are within the scope ofthe following claims.

The use of the terms “a” and “an” and “the” and similar referents in thecontext of describing the disclosed embodiments (especially in thecontext of the following claims) are to be construed to cover both thesingular and the plural, unless otherwise indicated herein or clearlycontradicted by context. The terms “comprising,” “having,” “including,”and “containing” are to be construed as open-ended terms (i.e., meaning“including, but not limited to,”) unless otherwise noted. The term“connected” is to be construed as partly or wholly contained within,attached to, or joined together, even if there is something intervening.Recitation of ranges of values herein are merely intended to serve as ashorthand method of referring individually to each separate valuefalling within the range, unless otherwise indicated herein and eachseparate value is incorporated into the specification as if it wereindividually recited herein. All methods described herein can beperformed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein orotherwise clearly contradicted by context. The use of any and allexamples, or exemplary language (e.g., “such as”) provided herein, isintended merely to better illuminate embodiments and does not pose alimitation on the scope of the disclosure unless otherwise claimed. Nolanguage in the specification should be construed as indicating anynon-claimed element as essential to the practice of the disclosure.

Disjunctive language such as the phrase “at least one of X, Y, or Z,”unless specifically stated otherwise, is intended to be understoodwithin the context as used in general to present that an item, term,etc., may be either X, Y, or Z, or any combination thereof (e.g., X, Y,and/or Z). Thus, such disjunctive language is not generally intended to,and should not, imply that certain embodiments require at least one ofX, at least one of Y, or at least one of Z to each be present.

Preferred embodiments of this disclosure are described herein, includingthe best mode known for carrying out the disclosure. Variations of thosepreferred embodiments may become apparent to those of ordinary skill inthe art upon reading the foregoing description. Those of ordinary skillshould be able to employ such variations as appropriate and thedisclosure may be practiced otherwise than as specifically describedherein. Accordingly, this disclosure includes all modifications andequivalents of the subject matter recited in the claims appended heretoas permitted by applicable law. Moreover, any combination of theabove-described elements in all possible variations thereof isencompassed by the disclosure unless otherwise indicated herein.

All references, including publications, patent applications, andpatents, cited herein are hereby incorporated by reference to the sameextent as if each reference were individually and specifically indicatedto be incorporated by reference and were set forth in its entiretyherein.

In the foregoing specification, aspects of the disclosure are describedwith reference to specific embodiments thereof, but those skilled in theart will recognize that the disclosure is not limited thereto. Variousfeatures and aspects of the above-described disclosure may be usedindividually or jointly. Further, embodiments can be utilized in anynumber of environments and applications beyond those described hereinwithout departing from the broader spirit and scope of thespecification. The specification and drawings are, accordingly, to beregarded as illustrative rather than restrictive.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: providing a first tenancywithin a cloud environment for a managed service provider (MSP);establishing a control plane for the MSP within the first tenancy,wherein the control plane is configured to manage a plurality ofservices offered by the MSP to a set of one or more customer tenanciesassociated with one or more customers of the cloud environment, the setof one or more customer tenancies including a first customer tenancyassociated with a first customer of the cloud environment, the firstcustomer tenancy including a set of one or more host machines includinga first host machine; establishing a first access plane for the MSP inthe first customer tenancy to enable the MSP, using the control planewithin the first tenancy, to change a state of the set of one or morehost machines; transmitting a first request from the control plane inthe first tenancy to the first access plane in the first customertenancy, wherein the first request is forwarded by the first accessplane to the first host machine, and corresponds to a service utilizedby the first host machine and managed by the control plane of the MSP;and responsive to the first request being validated, modifying a firststate of the first host machine in the first customer tenancy based onthe first request.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first accessplane includes a first gateway, and the first request is transmittedfrom the control plane of the MSP in the first tenancy to the firstgateway in the first customer tenancy, and wherein the first customertenancy is different than the first tenancy.
 3. The method of claim 2,further comprising: configuring the first gateway by assigning a globalunique IP address to the first gateway; and forwarding the first requestby the first gateway in the first customer tenancy to the first hostmachine included in a data plane in the first customer tenancy.
 4. Themethod of claim 3, wherein the first host machine validates the firstrequest by verifying whether the first request includes the globalunique IP address assigned to the first gateway.
 5. The method of claim1, wherein prior to the transmitting of the first request, the methodcomprises: obtaining, by the control plane of the MSP, a pair of codesassigned to the first host machine, the pair of codes including a firstcode assigned to the first host machine, and a second code assigned to aregion of the cloud environment hosting the first customer tenancy; andincorporating the pair of codes in the first request.
 6. The method ofclaim 1, wherein modifying the first state of the first host machineincludes updating, one or more operational parameters of the first hostmachine.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: responsive to thefirst request not being validated, logging by the control plane of theMSP, a failure of the first request.
 8. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: establishing a second access plane of the MSP in a secondcustomer tenancy of the cloud environment, the second access planeincluding a second gateway, the second customer tenancy and the firstcustomer tenancy co-residing in a region of the cloud environment;sending a second request from the control plane in the first tenancy toa second host machine included in the second customer tenancy via thesecond gateway; and responsive to the second request being validated,modifying a second state of the second host machine in the secondcustomer tenancy based on the second request.
 9. A computing devicecomprising: a processor; and a memory including instructions that, whenexecuted with the processor, cause the computing device to, at least:provide a first tenancy within a cloud environment for a managed serviceprovider (MSP); establish a control plane for the MSP within the firsttenancy, wherein the control plane is configured to manage a pluralityof services offered by the MSP to a set of one or more customertenancies associated with one or more customers of the cloudenvironment, the set of one or more customer tenancies including a firstcustomer tenancy associated with a first customer of the cloudenvironment, the first customer tenancy including a set of one or morehost machines including a first host machine; establish a first accessplane for the MSP in the first customer tenancy to enable the MSP, usingthe control plane within the first tenancy, to change a state of the setof one or more host machines; transmit a first request from the controlplane in the first tenancy to the first access plane in the firstcustomer tenancy, wherein the first request is forwarded by the firstaccess plane to the first host machine, and corresponds to a serviceutilized by the first host machine and managed by the control plane ofthe MSP; and responsive to the first request being validated, modifyinga first state of the first host machine in the first customer tenancybased on the first request.
 10. The computing device of claim 9, whereinthe first access plane includes a first gateway, and the first requestis transmitted from the control plane of the MSP in the first tenancy tothe first gateway in the first customer tenancy, and wherein the firstcustomer tenancy is different than the first tenancy.
 11. The computingdevice of claim 10, wherein the processor is further configured toconfigure the first gateway by assigning a global unique IP address tothe first gateway; and forward the first request by the first gateway inthe first customer tenancy to the first host machine included in a dataplane in the first customer tenancy.
 12. The computing device of claim11, wherein the first host machine validates the first request byverifying whether the first request includes the global unique IPaddress assigned to the first gateway.
 13. The computing device of claim9, wherein prior to transmitting of the first request, the processor isfurther configured to: obtain a pair of codes assigned to the first hostmachine, the pair of codes including a first code assigned to the firsthost machine, and a second code assigned to a region of the cloudenvironment hosting the first customer tenancy; and incorporate the pairof codes in the first request.
 14. The computing device of claim 9,wherein modifying the first state of the first host machine includesupdating, one or more operational parameters of the first host machine.15. The computing device of claim 9, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured for: responsive to the first request not being validated,logging a failure of the first request.
 16. A non-transitory computerreadable medium storing specific computer-executable instructions that,when executed by a processor, cause a computer system to at least:provide a first tenancy within a cloud environment for a managed serviceprovider (MSP); establish a control plane for the MSP within the firsttenancy, wherein the control plane is configured to manage a pluralityof services offered by the MSP to a set of one or more customertenancies associated with one or more customers of the cloudenvironment, the set of one or more customer tenancies including a firstcustomer tenancy associated with a first customer of the cloudenvironment, the first customer tenancy including a set of one or morehost machines including a first host machine; establish a first accessplane for the MSP in the first customer tenancy to enable the MSP, usingthe control plane within the first tenancy, to change a state of the setof one or more host machines; transmit a first request from the controlplane in the first tenancy to the first access plane in the firstcustomer tenancy, wherein the first request is forwarded by the firstaccess plane to the first host machine, and corresponds to a serviceutilized by the first host machine and managed by the control plane ofthe MSP; and responsive to the first request being validated, modifyinga first state of the first host machine in the first customer tenancybased on the first request.
 17. The non-transitory computer readablemedium of claim 16, wherein the first access plane includes a firstgateway, and the first request is transmitted from the control plane ofthe MSP in the first tenancy to the first gateway in the first customertenancy, and wherein the first customer tenancy is different than thefirst tenancy.
 18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim17, wherein the computer system is further configured to: configure thefirst gateway by assigning a global unique IP address to the firstgateway; and forward the first request by the first gateway in the firstcustomer tenancy to the first host machine included in a data plane inthe first customer tenancy.
 19. The non-transitory computer readablemedium of claim 18, wherein the first host machine validates the firstrequest by verifying whether the first request includes the globalunique IP address assigned to the first gateway.
 20. The non-transitorycomputer readable medium of claim 16, wherein modifying the first stateof the first host machine includes updating, one or more operationalparameters of the first host machine.